Can You Catch an STD from Public Toilet Seats?

Forget going to a horror movie. If you want pulse-pounding terror, just walk into a public toilet. What you see can be scary enough, but what you know you can't see can even more frightening. There have been several reports about finding fecal material on public restroom doorknobs or finding cold germs on sinks. For years, whispers on the street and behind the bike shed said you could catch sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) just by using the same toilet seat an infected person just used. Is this possible?

How Would You Catch It?

It takes a little bit of imagination and head-scratching to try and figure out just how the STDs wound up on a toilet seat in the first place. The viruses that make up most STDs live only in sexual bodily fluids, not urine, feces or any part of the skin that may touch a toilet seat. This means that some rather usual activity would have to take place on the toilet seat itself.

You can catch the virus for genital warts from puddles on the floor in a warm, humid bathroom. But are you really going to walk and out of a public bathroom with bare feet? Probably not.

How Long Do Those Germs Live?

Viruses that cause STDs, even HIV/AIDS need to live in a very warm environment. Lying on a toilet seat is far too dry and arid for them, so experts think that by the time you sit down on a toilet seat, any STD viruses will have already died. There is speculation that if you had an open cut on your buttocks then and only then is it theoretically possible to catch an STD from a toilet seat - but so far, no cases have been reported.

The Best Protection

On the whole, public restrooms may be laden with dirt and germs, but not sexually transmitted diseases. You need to have sex with an infected person in order to catch these diseases. In the case of HIV/Aids, you can also catch the disease via tainted blood transfusions, sharing a needle with an infected person or being born to a mother who is already infected.

However, for other sexually transmitted diseases like Chlamydia, syphilis or gonorrhoea, the best protection is to always use a condom before any sexual act. Use just one condom at a time. Two condoms will not double your protection.

Where Did This Fear Come From?

If the fear of catching an STD from a toilet seat is largely unjustified, then why is the fear so widespread? It's probably due partially to the intimate nature of having to use a toilet but mostly from lack of education about how STDs work.